Antecedents and Civic Consequences of Choosing Real versus Ersatz Social Activities

Social capital (Coleman, 1990 Coleman, J. S. 1990. Foundations of social theory, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.  Google Scholar]), democracy's wellspring (Putnam, 1993 Putnam, R. D. 1993. Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.  Google Scholar]; Tocqueville, 1835 Tocqueville, A. 1835. Democracy in America, Edited by: Mansfield, H. C. and Winthrop, D. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.  Google Scholar]/2000), must now accrue within a social fabric that has been changed by the ubiquitous adoption of technologies such as television and the Internet. Three studies (N = 313) of college students supported a theory of ersatz social behavior, which proposed that: a) the use of technological (replacement/ersatz) alternatives to real social interaction may be less conducive to the skill building and opinion formation that foster social capital; b) ersatz activities involve fewer costs (effort, risk of rejection) than real interactions; and c) ersatz alternatives are regularly chosen, even though real interaction is ostensibly preferred. The results provide increased understanding of when and how mediated interaction can be detrimental to social capital formation.